The mechanical strengths of buried lamellar tears located near the weld toe in the welded tee joints were evaluated in terms of the loss of load carrying capacity as a function of tear area. In static loading, the load carrying capacity was significantly reduced when tear intercepted over 10% of the cross-sectional area of the welded joints. However, the welded joints containing buried tears still failed at stresses over the yield strength of the base metal in the through-thickness direction in spite of the presence of tears up to 20-25% of the area. Fatigue strength of welded joints containing tears markedly reduced with increasing tear areas. Lehigh lamellar tearing test used in this study to produce speicmens was described in detail. The load carrying cpapacity in static loading was influenced by the reduction of supporting area whereas that in fatigue loading was influenced by the stress-concentration effects of lamellar tears and the reduction of supporting area. In bend tests, the pre-existing lamellar tears always grew up toward the weld toe. However, in fatigue loading, cracks grew up and down simultaneously form both the weld toe and the top of lamellar tears because of stress concentration. In fatigue loading, delaminations and decohesion of inclusion/matrix interface generated in multipass welds provided crack propagation paths and enhanced crack propagation because the tips of delaminations and deconhesios acted as stress raisers.